Beloved Cooking
by God Emperor Penguin
Summary: Throughout her childhood, Blake has heard her mother's wisdom on how to win a man's heart: through food. Taking those words to heart, Blake realizes the true secret to making a delicious meal is cooking with someone you love. For the /r/RWBY Monthly Fanfiction Contest: November.


**Beloved Cooking**

**RWBY**

_Written from the Perspective of Blake Belladonna_

**Summary:** _Throughout her childhood, Blake has heard her mother's wisdom on how to win a man's heart: through food. Taking those words to heart, Blake realizes the true secret to making a delicious meal is cooking with someone you love. _For the /r/RWBY Monthly Fanfiction Contest: November. __

**Submission for: **_/r/RWBY Monthly Fanfiction Contest: November_

**narutochaos22: **_is bro for editing_

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><p>"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Although, there's a faster detour through his pen-nevermind."<p>

My mother told me that when I was young. While I never did find out what the detour was, at least the stomach was always the same.

All you needed were fresh ingredients and a good cookbook. There's a trick, my mother would say, and it was to think of someone in mind as you cooked. Someone who you had feelings for; who you wanted to shower with affection. For my mother, it was me. That's how she made each morning's catch delicious. And here I thought all it took was a pinch of salt.

The whole thought seemed silly to me until I tasted a bit of Jaune.

It started by accident. A loose hair made its way into my soup. It was some kind of garlic and onion concoction. Though meant to cleanse the palate, at best it just itched my nose.

Seated across from me, Jaune was engaged in animated conversation with the rest of our teams. Be it joking about classes or quizzes about the homework, everyone seemed to be having a good time. And, as if it were fate, a loosened hair detached itself from his head.

And it landed square on my spoon.

I frowned at the hair, but I knew Jaune meant no harm from it. He probably didn't even realize it fell in my soup when he asked me a question.

"Hey Blake," Jaune turned to face me. "Do you mind if you help me study later in the library?"

"Sure," I said looking up. For an instant, I forgot about the hair on my spoon.

I thoughtlessly put the spoon into my mouth.

Wow.

A world of flavor I never could of imagined exploded in my mouth.

It surged through my body and rattled me to the very core. Dear _lord_, so this is what nirvana feels like.

Whatever the heck _that_ was, I needed _more_ of it.

And thus hatched the plan.

As we sat in the library, I was shifting uncomfortably. There really wasn't an easy way to breach the subject.

I mean, let's take a step back for a moment - I was going to ask Jaune for his hair in order to meet my food fetish needs. I mean, who does that?

To summarise, it was a bizarre situation. An extremely bizarre situation.

"Blake, you uh… alright?"

I snapped out of my trance to realise that I was (probably hungrily) staring at Jaune's flowing locks. Right then, that only made what I was about to say that much easier.

"Jaune, I've been thinking… I might not want to be a huntress," I began softly.

His face read of shock and disbelief as he muttered me to rethink.

"The truth is… I've always… I've always…"

He leaned closer. "Blake... "

"I've always wanted to cut hair!" I lied. Would he buy it? Would he believe it?

Jaune threw his head back and laughed. "Really? That's so… really!? Oh man…"

And so I popped the question. "I know this is sudden, but… c-can I cut your hair?"

With a soft smile, he answered, "Sure, but you've got to promise me you'll stay a huntress. Plus it's okay if you cut a bit short. The bangs get in my eyes. Do you know how much it stings when sweaty hair starts poking your eyes?"

I smiled back, my supply line was secure.

The taste of that scrambled eggs, mixed in with a good dollop of hair and cream. My goodness, a hairball was caught in my throat but I swallowed it anyways.

Simply delicious.

But there was still the matter of finding the... rarer types of hair.

And to that, I turned to Nora Valkyrie.

"The...the truth is Nora… I collect hair," I admitted slyly to her in the bathroom on day. It wasn't a lie. I did collect hair, but only Jaune's.

Nora looked at me cautiously. Would she think me strange? A freak? A monstrous fiend with no sense of shame?

There was silence.

"That's so cool! I've always wanted to start a hair collection!"

And then not so silence.

"No problem, Blake! I'll get you all the hair you need!"

A breath of relief came over me. I had my supplier for the more exotic specimens.

Dusk came quickly enough, and with Nora's help I had collected an extensive amount of Jaune's trimmings. There was a variety of hair to select from, categorized by length, smell, and coloration. And so my experiments began in earnest. Some of the more common hairs, such as his head hair, were placed into a variety of mixtures and cured. Salt, honey, pepper rubs - all were used.

By my ancestors… it made everything delicious.

From red meats to pork to poultry to vegetable stir fry and baked goods… just a dash or a pinch of the right hair-of-Jaune made it all tastier. It was my ambrosia.

I knew this would become my life's work.

Everything was meticulously documented. My notebook, the '_Cooknote_' as I called it, held every single miraculous combination found. Grounded terminal hair made excellent spice rubs for barbeques. A pinch of vellus hair gave things a sweet taste and were reserved for desserts. A lucky batch of chest hair tumbled my way when Jaune felt that shaving his pectorals made him more manly.

The floors after our haircut sessions were covered with gold threads, worth their weight in their namesake's color.

I'll be honest, sometimes I'd lick the floor _clean_.

After one particular session, my cravings got the better of me. My thoughts had begun to trail off… what if I tasted other parts of Jaune? What of his nails or his sweat… dare I even try his blood and flesh…?

My heart was strong but my stomach was weak. It took only a moment to decide.

That's it. I needed to taste Jaune.

Entering the library I found him reading a comic. With a brisk pace, I approached him with as much dignity as I could muster before realizing that there was no honorable way to do this.

"Blake?" He lowered his comic from his reading couch. "What's up?"

"I….I-I…" I was finding it hard to use words. Well, forget that route then. Time to go Yang.

With strong grip on his collar, I dragged him out of the library.

"Bl-Blake!? Blake! Where are you taking me! Pyrrha?! Pyrrha! Help! I'm being abducted!"

"Hush! Some of us are trying to read in the library!" Ren scolded Jaune from afar.

The library doors closed behind us, but the eyes continued to follow.

I dragged him to a janitor's closet where I slammed the door shut behind us. The watching eyes and whispering rumors did nothing to deter me. I was certain that there was an audience gathering but I had locked us away from prying eyes. Let them come and heckle, I shall have my prize.

"B-Blake! Th-this is… wh-what are you doing?" The nervous tone of his voice did nothing to dull my appetite.

My faunus nose was enhanced in the cramped space as our scents mingled together. I thirsted for him, I craved for him, _god_ I needed him. Nothing was going to stop me from quenching my appetite. Nothing.

I licked his neck. It tasted… by the blue skies and green grass… it tasted…

_Amazing._

My eyes had widened from the intoxicating savory taste. My lips were burning with a spicy tinge from his hair. His sweat cooled my tongue like milk. The searing taste felt like a distant lie.

And I sank into oblivion.

When we exited the closet, our clothes were disheveled in a mess. I was covered in sweat and Jaune in my saliva.

A photographer from the school newspaper managed to capture the shot of us exiting for the gossip column while a large crowd of students applauded and cheered.

I turned to Jaune, who was clearly overwhelmed by the attention. No matter, what needed to said needed to me said now before things could move forward.

"Jaune… I'm embarrassed to say it… but…"*

I mouthed it carefully, even for a dense idiot like him could understand.

_I. Want. You._

We began spending more time together after that.

One day, I began experimenting with my own hair. It produced a plate of brownies. Yep.

"Blake…" Ruby mumbled as she chewed on the brownie carefully. "These… these… are…" Ruby's eyes with focused, as if searching through a mental dictionary for the proper word.

Weiss' curiosity was piqued. She stepped forward and had a bite.

Her eyes lit up like a snowflake on fire.

"Wh-wha...wo-wo... " If this were a foreign cartoon, Weiss' eyes would be replaced by shiny stars.

Yang was the last. She lept off her bed like a beast and grabbed the largest brownie on the tray. She examined it carefully, as if she were a jeweller examining a prized cut diamond. Before long, she took a hearty bite.

And stopped.

"Blake… you… you…"

Zwei eased up from underneath Weiss' bed, pouting for a bite. I hissed. He cowered. No food allowed for that demon scum.

My three teammates looked at me, as if I were some ethereal being from a different plane of existence.

"_These are fantastic_!" They cheered in unison.

Glowing reviews came from each of them. Ruby and Yang said it bested their mom's cookies while Weiss said she had tasted the dishes of celebrity chefs who could never achieve such a degree of perfection. My teammates were congratulating me on my masterpiece brownies that were made no different than any other store bought mix.

Well, other than the addition of my own grounded up eyebrow hair of course.

Someone, I forgot who, popped the suggestion that I have Team JNPR try some.

The reaction was nearly identical.

With a muster of courage, I stepped forward to Jaune. All eyes were on me. With my head lowered and my arms behind me, I asked another thing of him.

"If...If it's alright with you… can I make you lunch sometime?"

So that's how I began cooking for him. And Jaune loved every bite.

The breaded fish had an extra crunch from my finger nails. The smoked pork belly had extra flavor from my nose hair spice. A few drops of sweat made any dessert sweeter. He always enjoyed my frozen bananas over Weiss' family brand.

Our relationship progressed steadily over that. We had many study dates to make sure Jaune passed all of his exams. Snacks were produced by me of course. From time to time, the other members of Team RWBY and Team JNPR would join us - eager to sample my latest recipe.

I'd never thought I'd see a time where I'd feel such euphoria at the notion of seeing people enjoy your beef-and-skin-flake stew.

Then one night, Jaune took me on a date. It wasn't like the others. For one, Jaune dressed nicely.

"Pyrrha helped pick them out," he admitted. A pang of jealousy came over me. No matter, I'll deal with it later, I promised myself.

We went through dinner. Though delicious, Jaune admitted wasn't as good as anything I made. Then came the amusement park. I held his arm as he escorted me through an ecstatic night of trying out the festive game stalls and wandering with skewers and candied apples in hand. We found a stall with octopus balls and even enjoyed the fireworks.

There was even a ferris wheel ride. We said nothing for most of it, but it was lovely, I mused as I rested on his shoulder.

The clocks struck midnight when we took a stroll through the park. Eventually we found ourselves by a secluded bench. I forgot what we talked about initially, but then a certain topic came up.

Yang had said something earlier in the week about, "how to please a dragon."

We talked about what it meant. What to do. Blushes were on our faces.

But to tell you the truth…

I was curious.

Maybe, it was a whole new world of flavors that I couldn't even possibly imagine.

As a scientist, it was my duty to experiment. With Jaune's not-so-reluctant permission, I began my work with a feathered kiss on his lips before I went on my knees. Beneath the moon and and the trees and the stars in the cold air of the park, I tasted Jaune's dragon.

It was the saltiest meal I'd ever had.

We sat beside each other on the bench afterwards. For the first time in a long while my hunger was sated. My cravings for Jaune were still there, lingering, but nonetheless momentarily satiated.

"Thanks for the meal," My lips curled into a smile.

"U-uh.. no problem," Jaune said nervously. "Any...time…" He blushed.

"H-How was it?" He asked the question as if there was nothing to ask.

Oh Jaune. I suppose a bit of teasing would do.

"Do you want a taste?"

Before he could reply, I gave him a taste of his own dragon, its ghost still in my mouth.

He looked at me, surprised but not disgusted. Instead I was met with a soft smile.

Bringing himself to a kneel, he held my hand in his. With his other, he reached into his pocket.

And he took out a velvet box.

My heartbeat quickened.

He revealed a ring. "I want to eat your cooking everyday," Jaune proposed.

With tears in my eyes, I accepted. Clinging to him I breathed him in once more, every bit as overwhelmed by him as I was from the moment I had a taste of his hair. Ah, such bliss.

And so, we lived happily ever after. Sometimes, Jaune helps me cook, and other times I let him spoil me.

He always asks me though, what's my secret, what's in my vials…

And with a kiss and a smile, a wink and laugh, I tell him the same answer every time.

"The secret ingredient is you, my beloved."

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><p><em>Beloved Cooking Fin<em>

**Author's Notes: **_PLEASE VOTE FOR ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE._


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